“If you can't source locally from non-intensive farmers you know, then the 'organic' label ensures the most tightly regulated, transparent and sustainable supply chain in the food industry. That leaves a better taste on its own, surely!”Angus Oliphant

'healthy' should be the food 'standard' not a premium or a luxury line.

Angus Oliphant - May 22, 2016

"Consumers need choice, education and sensible advice about moderation.." True, and there is a lot to agree with in Luke Johnson's article, but while it's important to acknowledge the huge benefits that have been achieved by our food industry, it's as important to underline how much it has also driven down our understanding of the true cost of real food. And, at the 'value' (a dubious and ambiguous term I've always disliked) end of the scale established a high tolerance for poor standard produce.

The 99p cottage pie is celebrated as a great success for accessibility (by some) but also serves to make healthy equivalents 'premium' - and shouldn't healthy be considered the standard instead?

Regulation has to be moderated to encourage compliance not simply penalise, but there is still an inherently misguided culture within the food establishment, and government, that allows what should be our front line in healthcare to be treated simply as a commercial commodity to the benefit of the shareholders first and us, the consumers, a distant second.

Shortlisted Products Announced in the Best Baby AND Toddler Gear Awards 2016!

Angus Oliphant - May 16, 2016

The results are in! The products shortlisted in this year’s biggest ever Best Baby & Toddler Gear Awards have been announced. You can now see who is in the running to take gold, silver and bronze as well as consumer choice in categories ranging from best ‘all-terrain pushchair’ to ‘ride-on toy’ and ‘newborn gifts and keepsakes.’

The team at Mumii have spent time assessing each and every product that entered the 2016 awards to determine what should be shortlisted. The most comprehensive parenting awards will now see hundreds of testers try out the products over the coming months. The Mumii team will also be scoring each and every item and together these marks will reveal the winners. Jo Studholme, Director/Editor of Mumii states: “Wow! We are thrilled with the reception to this year’s awards. We've had a fantastic response and now it’s time to put these products to the test. The next few months are set to be a fun but also challenging time for our testers as they complete detailed assessment forms for each and every item in the categories they're judging. Testing over several months means parents can really get to grips with a product, see how they perform, last and work for everyday life.

Alongside our vote, we are excited to see who will be crowned the winners this year!” All winners will be revealed in the Best Baby & Toddler Gear magazine that comes out in September. Distributed through Kicks Count, Positive Birth Movement, Project-B, Good Egg Safety and through Mumii, this magazine shows expectant and new parents the products that really matter. Click below to see all of the shortlisted products.

YOU CAN VOTE FOR US NOw...

#‎votenow‬ - OK, so you need to register on the site first, then go into 'Awards' then 'Toddler Food Brand' then click 'Miniscoff'... Not that I want to influence you at all!

miniscoff: "ready meals for mums who don't buy freezer food"

By Sam Parker Bowles - May 9, 2016

The day I finally realised that I was a man, and no longer a dreaded “student” (shudder) was the day that I decided I would never buy a frozen ready meal again.

Yes, I used to think that I was somewhat of a sophisticated culinary god because I knew that when the light went off on my oven it meant that it was ‘pre-heated’ and I could then throw in a pasta bake for 40 minutes while I covered myself in Lynx body spray, poured budget vodka into a decanter and tried to find two candles that were roughly the same length as each other.

My word, I got nervous when my parents came to dinner. However, with time, I realized the importance of eating well as well as learning about food and all its healthy benefits so I decided that frozen meals were no longer to enter my freezer.

Except for fish fingers of course, those strange coloured lumps of ice from Iceland, known as “ready meals”, were a thing of the past.

And then I had children…

Food is not simply an 'eating occasion', it's the ultimate prevention medicine. Real food, that is.

Angus Oliphant - May 8, 2016

Industrial and synthetic ingredients are mostly used to make the 'food product' cheaper or last longer - certainly not to improve nutrition or health. Not to benefit us, the consumer, but to create an illusion in favour of profit. To make us crave and therefore buy more of what we don't need through irresponsible use of addictive levels of salt, sugar and fat.

Food is our first line of defense, the fuel that makes our complex systems function best, the ultimate 'prevention' medicine in our healthcare. Cheap, dirty petrol or oil in your car will cost you much more down the line than using quality, clean fuel in the first place - so we don't do it.

So why are we so willing to pollute our bodies - our children's bodies - with cheap processed, adulterated food? Big Food Corp has tricked us all into believing in artificially cheap food - it's not food it's 'filler'. Real food might cost a little more by comparison in price or effort - but surely our long term health is worth more.

Know where your food comes from, buy quality and go organic where you can - and let food fuel us and fortify us again as nature intended. You'll find this way we don't need to eat so much either

Click below to find out about Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution and what you could do to help.

treats and cheats.

CRUMBS Magazine:In The Larder - May, 2016

Prima Baby Awards 2016 winners announced

Scoff Central March 22, 2016

"Miniscoff scoop GOLD again ( & Bronze too! ) - that's Gold five times in the last 6 years.

The competition was fierce, with thousands of products on test, and now the judges have decided. After hours of testing thousands of baby gear the PBA judges have picked this year’s prizewinning products

It has taken weeks of testing, judging and voting, but we can now announce the results of the Prima Baby Awards 2016.

Organised by our sister title Prima Baby magazine, a hotbed of readers, parenting and product experts and MadeForMums users, have picked the very finest in top parenting lifestyle products."

Bringing risk back into children's lives

Scoff Central Feb 27, 2016

Experts say overprotective parents are not allowing their offspring enough time for 'kids to be kids'.

Parents are being urged to "Re-Wild their child" and get their kids involved in risky play outside.

The growing number of children stuck indoors on tablets, computers and game consoles has experts worried and they want parents to make a change.

Help Needed! Spring (Clean) Kids' Menus

Angus Oliphant Jan 12, 2016

Do you have a local cafe or restaurant near to you who'd like to add some award-winning 'clean' food options to their kids' menus this Spring?

Yes Mr Rayner, and we shouldn't indulge children in the classroom by trying to engage them in the subject matter - let them just conjugate Latin verbs all day, it'll do 'em good!!

You're right, of course, about the majority of nutrition-less cardboard marketed to kids in British eateries - but I beg to question the appropriateness of most adult offerings for a developing child between 3 and 8 years. Children's menus aren't a bad idea, it's the pitiful excuses that currently populate so many of them that are at fault. Similarly, burgers, pizzas and nuggets aren't a bad idea per se - it's the standard that's at fault!

We should be feeding our kids grown-up food, but we do need to make it age appropriate from a salt, sugar and fat perspective - and, above all, we just need to use GOOD ingredients and kill the junk!

Best Children's Food Brand

Scoff Central Oct 22, 2015

“WOOOHOO!! @JuniorMagazine #juniordesignawards We won - 2ND YEAR RUNNING! Chuffed to bits!”

With nearly 300 shortlisted entries to deliberate over, our expert panel of Junior Design Awards 2015 judges had their work cut out. We split the judging over two days; one to judge the fashion categories and one to judge the lifestyle.

“Decide where you want to be in five years and then you can work out how to get there.” Simple. It’s one of those rather glib suggestions doled out by every man and his dog looking to sound a bit clever! Another is the ‘what percentage of your week is spent on sales, would you say?’ – the meaning is implicit. Not enough, clearly. But then in a company of only one department – the one entitled ‘Ministry of Headless Chickens’ its hardly surprising is it, Einstein.’

Social media virgins

Archive Blog: 2011 Revisited

When we started Miniscoff, waayyy back when, someone remarked how tough it would be setting up a new business with small children (ours were 6, 4 and -2 at the time). I'm not sure they got the age range right. Now with a teen, a virtual teen and a wannabe 5yo 'teen', the average day seems to have shrunk by half yet again - how in heaven's name are you supposed to manage either effectively?

Let us love our freezers again!

Archive Blog: 2010 Revisited

Why have we become so hooked on ‘chilled’ foods, when ‘frozen’ works so much better for everyone in almost every way? Many chilled foods can be pumped full of preservatives or go to waste in alarming volumes. The truth is we aren't really given the choice and where is the sense in that...?